


Our Most Noble Prank

by PaulaMcG



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Animagus, Artist Remus Lupin, Canon Compliant, Hogwarts, M/M, Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Pranks, Pre-Slash, Werewolf Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21697096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG
Summary: Peter is not sure how happy he – and his friends – can be about a prank or two at the end of September in his sixth year at Hogwarts.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 5





	Our Most Noble Prank

**Author's Note:**

> Peter and his friends will never help me make any money. This piece can stand on its own, but it also belongs to the same extensive story in my Rowling's-first-five-novels-compliant universe as the rest of my fanfiction.

“You two should have waited for Moony and me,” Sirius says, frowning, and moving his hand a bit closer to Remus’s on the flat rock where they’re sitting side by side, “and avoided getting caught.”

As he meets my pointed stare – with one cold grey eye, while his too long hair’s hanging over the other – he seems to become aware of what he’s doing. Now he turns from me to James, who’s pacing at the water’s edge in front of us, and also changes position, folds his arms over his chest.

This stupid stump of a felled beech I’ve chosen as my seat is damp. Impatient, I stand up when waiting for James’s reply. I must resist the urge to remind him, and to reveal to the other two that I said almost those same words yesterday before I agreed to sneak to the dungeons with him.

I should have at least stayed at watch, as a rat. Now I’ve been caught literally red-handed in a prank.

“It’s all right,” James repeats. “We’re proud of pranks like this one. Haven’t you heard what Bones calls them? She’s not as stupid as she looks, just too serious even for our Moony. Responsible rebellion!”

Remus, in turn, frowns, but doesn’t respond to the rudeness in acknowledging his ex-almost-girlfriend’s wits – or to the possible pun involving his new sweetheart’s name. “I’m proud of you,” he says, instead, and he looks at me longer than at James, making me blush.

“Still, you could have considered and planned more carefully.” Sirius sounds irritable – he who’s rash and reckless, and hates stopping to think.

“There was a chance to act, and we had to take it. Couldn’t wait when Peter came up with such a great idea.”

“It was no new idea.” Sirius glances at Remus but after only a slightest pause continues, “Moony’s idea from more than a year ago!”

James won’t give up. “But the slogan was new.” 

Blood’s red in all our veins.

A simple statement of a fact. Oddly enough, I seem to be the only one to never forget that. But I actually hate to say it or write it. Or read it, so I’m relieved it’s been charmed off without delay. Still, I fear they’ll resurrect it for us to scrub it at our detention tomorrow. And that makes me feel sick. First of all, the memory of the original prank, and Dad hearing Remus and me talk about it to Mum, and punishing Mum for just saying she’d been a student, a Ravenclaw. And then what I can already see if I close my eyes: the paint running down the wall like real…

Stop seeing it! Talk! “And the idea to paint a slogan in a more public place than back in our fourth year.”

“That’s right!” James’s voice is triumphant, and he gives me a thumbs-up.

“In any case, you should have asked before taking the rest of the red paint. You know the oils were bought for Moony’s art.”

At least Sirius isn’t directly bragging that he’s ordered and paid for all the art equipment and materials. Perhaps because he now has no money to buy more. Because he stupidly sends back all the Galleons from the uncle who keeps offering to support him after his parents disowned him.

“Scarlet,” Remus corrects. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The paint didn’t go wasted. It got used for a good cause. Not even as much wasted as what we splashed on the Slytherin common room walls back then. In there, only Slytherins saw the slogans, and they spread the rumours that we’d just made a mess.”

“Right.” James pats Remus on the shoulder when passing. “And getting caught wasn’t a bad thing. All the time, that’s been the point in using the Gryffindor colour. We haven’t even wanted to hide who’s responsible.”

“Exactly, responsible, as Amelia says!” Remus smiles, happy to get a chance to say her first name, I guess, to show that he’s not embarrassed about the failed dating.

All right. Only Sirius is still grim, and I want to agree with James and Remus. I’m not going to say that I didn’t want to get caught. What’s the use? Besides, could it be that this is not bad for my reputation even among some of the teachers, those against blood-purity ideas?

“I wonder...” Why not say it aloud? “At breakfast today McGonagall passed by and said she was glad I volunteered to try the new spell in class last week – and praised me as a true bold Gryffindor.”

“You volunteered…?” Remus looks delighted.

He’s got faith in me. He’s always said I’m a lot better than him in Transfiguration, and he encouraged me to take the NEWT course.

I have to cause a small disappointment. “That’s it! I did not. Perhaps she wanted to show her approval of the prank.”

A stench assaults my nose. Sirius has changed, and now Remus lays a hand on his Padfoot’s neck, ruffles the shaggy fur.

“That is likely,” Remus says, caressing the mongrel’s back with long, slow strokes. “You are getting approval – mine for sure. But when we came back from the woods and I heard, I just couldn’t help thinking: what if you get detention for several evenings – even for Tuesday.”

Thinking about himself, of course. Ever since the beginning of our second year, when each of us had figured it out, and he let James announce it in our dorm, he’s kept making these covert references to his condition and the night that turns him into a monster. As if he were proud of it. I’d rather forget all about it for the rest of the month.

Now James has stopped and crouched in front of him. “You could say we took that risk. But I knew it would all turn out fine.”

Always so sure of himself and his good luck, he may trust that the teachers love him enough to let him choose the timing of his detentions. And he can’t imagine that Remus may have actually wished for a full-moon night spent alone with his Pads.

Lately the two of them have really been getting unnaturally close. Padfoot’s now rolled around, exposed his belly, but he doesn’t allow it to be stroked, and he licks his Moony’s hand, instead. Sirius’s resentment of our prank can’t be due to that risk. Losing the company of the stag and the rat, he’d have the wolf all for himself to play with – like in March, when he, as the first of us, managed to remain an animal all through the night.

“You know how much I’ve wanted to be there with you,” James adds, after explaining that we’ll have detention only tomorrow, and won’t be allowed to go out at the Hogsmeade weekend, two weeks from now, which is not worth grieving yet.

Remus has been just smiling, bent over the dog, but now he lifts his head for a moment. “I know. And when you made it, and came in July to spend the night with me in my cellar at home, I saw how much worth the wait it was. Amazing. The stag’s amazing.”

And nobody wants to remember that I was the first to learn to transform, and that the whole idea was originally mine. I succeeded fully by April full moon, and I’ve been there for Remus, for my best friend, just as I promised nearly four years ago, when he was almost shocked to realise that the wolf had not hurt a stray rat that had slipped into the Shack, for shelter from snow, maybe – and in its company not hurt even himself like usual. I promised I’d learn to turn into a rat to be with him, so that he’d stop mauling himself, inflicting those sickening…

At the rise of three full moons now, I’ve waited with Sirius in the tunnel, listening to the awful moans – feeling his ordeal turn into the need that changes us. We both hate that wait. I, because I can’t help seeing in my mind ever more horrendous deformities. And he, because he, perversely, wishes to be with Remus all through the transformation.

What could he do but stare? That’s what Remus has absolutely forbidden. Not even Remus can possibly want anyone to hug him when he’s in such a state. And Sirius can’t bear touching like that. He can hardly bear wrestling with James, whom he’s called his true brother almost from the beginning – since the Sorting, which separated him from his childhood mates, the even more arrogant pure-blood heirs.

But when these two turn into canines, they become inseparable. I’ve done my best to get in between, and that takes some courage.

I’ve now crouched, too, and from under my fringe I glance at Remus’s face furtively, seek an eye-contact. But he’s again fully focused on the dog. He pretends to reach with his fingers for its belly, and fails on purpose.

I wasn’t wrong to believe we’d be in no danger in the Shack. Just in case, I always let the dog go in first. When Pads starts pounding up the stairs to the room, where Moony’s moans have given way to soft whining, I quickly seal and bolt the door from the tunnel behind me, and become Wormtail the rat.

At that moment, the huge wolf’s still lying down. I can hear the thumping of its tail against the floorboards. The combined smells of the two of them offend my sensitive little snout as I stick it in from behind the door frame. Moony’s eyes are closed, but he’s lifted his head to sniff at Padfoot’s ears, while Padfoot, in turn, is licking the wolf’s paws, monstrous claws and all.

Yes, I’m a bold Gryffindor. I always scurry straight to them, and tap Padfoot’s snout with a front paw. That usually makes him cringe. If he manages to ignore me, I nibble at his tail until he’s irritated enough to turn abruptly and launch at me – but slowly enough so that I don’t get seriously scared.

Soon I will be running around the room, and Pads bouncing behind me, deliberately not quite catching me – entertaining Moony, I assume. That’s when the wolf gets up, flexes its supple limbs, and finally joins in our race.

Oh, now James has stood up and resumed his pacing. There must be something in his mind that he’s considering how to put into words.

It’s stupid to stay here in front of these two, who spare no attention to me. I yank off a stalk of grass to stick into my mouth, as if that were all I had crouched for. I retreat towards the remaining beech. Its wide branches and big leaves, still green, offer some shelter from the occasional showers of rain in this regular haunt of ours. But this grass is no good for chewing: all withered, dry. I leave the stalk between my lips anyway, and lean against the thick, smooth trunk.

From here I can watch them. The wolf’s certainly more handsome than that mutt. Of course, Remus is beautiful, but not in that way, not very much taller than me, not broad-shouldered. And the wolf’s always healthy and strong – unlike Remus, who, even without wounds, is exhausted, weak for a day or two after the changes. Anyway, there’s nothing threatening in the wolf’s manner, nothing violent even when it’s not exactly calm. When I, in turn, chase the two of them, sometimes I catch the dog, sometimes the wolf.

And I actually hesitate less before touching the wolf, nibbling its fur playfully, tickling its face with my whiskers, stroking its paw with mine. It means nothing. Just keeping the wolf from getting frustrated and starting to gnaw its paws. Nothing like stroking Remus’s arm. Something I used to do, so as to soothe him, when I felt him getting anxious in anticipation of his worst time of the month. But only around our third year and fourth, when everyone knew he and Amelia were an item.

It means nothing to Remus, because his mind – unlike mine and Sirius’s – is not there with the animal form. I’ve asked him if he can remember anything about the night, and he’s replied furtively: it’s hard to say. But I believe he can’t.

Sirius seems to believe something else, but I suppose he’s afraid to talk about it. And I wonder if even Sirius himself knows what he wishes. Perhaps he truly hopes he can share something meaningful with Remus when they are both canines, something that retains its meaning after the night. But I can see he still fears any touch when he’s in his human form, and he can’t possibly want what Remus wants to share with him.

Who could seriously want something so unnatural! Sometimes I think I must save them both. Why can’t we all just be Marauder mates as we used to?

“Listen!” James says suddenly. “Why...” Why can’t we… No, he’s paused just briefly so as to repeat a word, for more emphasis. “Why have we become illegal Animagi? To help our friend stay calm in his imprisonment? Moony, you’ve found out that any rat or cat can do as much. Now you’ve got a cat at home, and here we could arrange something similar.”

Yes, so much easier. And quicker: all those years ago we could’ve got a pet to sneak into the Shack, and been done with the injuries, the bandages soaked with… But Remus didn’t want to risk perhaps, after all, killing or just hurting an animal, and endangering the humanity in himself, as he couldn’t be sure. We had to start hunting for reliable information on the limits of werewolves’ violence – a thankless task, which turned up only gory descriptions – and on Animagi.

I tried to make them still listen to me: t’was just an idea. But they’d picked up the ball and run with it. There was no stopping James and Sirius when they’d taken the challenge, set the ambition. And I had to run with them, sticking to my idea.

Now Remus has started protesting, as he protested back then, halfheartedly. “Of course, I prefer staying with an Animagus, at least one of you. I’m sure you make the wolf calmer, even happier.” 

Now that we’ve succeeded, of course I’ll do my best to serve as my friend’s full-moon companion. But if he doesn’t care for that, I’m still going to take the full advantage of my skill. James envied me in the spring when he just couldn’t keep his cocky crown of antlers for more than a moment. He wanted to distract us to a new project of expeditions – and to run with another quick idea of mine: a map. No, when exploring the castle we were not meant to, didn’t need to be in our animal forms, he said. But I’ve made use of mine anyway. Someday little Wormy will discover something extraordinary. And that will be marked on the secret map, which was my idea. And if they don’t give credit for all that to me…

Someday someone else will appreciate my achievement, for which I sacrificed so much, taking time from schoolwork, even from preparation for my OWLs. All the tremendous risk of getting caught with forbidden books, and… At least I wasn’t as foolhardy as James: to experiment with Shaping Spells, and to suffer some deep… Or as overenthusiastic as Sirius: to devote all free time to devising processes of heightening our dimension-consciousness and of consciously volunteering to lose it. Anyway, I’ve gained a skill valuable beyond our circle, too.

Remus goes on, with his hand still pushing against Padfoot’s kicking paws, “My parents described to me how the wolf was whining at the full moons after your visit, Prongs. It must have missed you. I know that I missed you all, and cursed the moon for waxing to full once more just before the term started.”

The original idea was to do this for my best friend. But I’m not a present for him and his friends to open. Oh, that song from last year, the singer Dad hates! And I hate Dad. But perhaps there’s some truth also in the line: I should have listened to my old man. All right, go on that road, he said. While he lets my mother’s aunt pay for it, he reminds me that he didn’t need this posh wizards’ school, and he’s got the best of magic and Muggle skills. And that I mustn’t let these rich kids use me. Now if Remus is finding a replacement in his mongrel – who also ain’t got a Knut, hah – he sure can’t hold me forever: I didn’t sign up with him.

“All right.” James is standing in front of Remus, and he now bends forward, with palms on his thighs, and glances at me and Pads, then focuses on Remus. “We have not become Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs so as to let you chase us around in a squalid room and bore yourself to sleeping through the rest of the beautiful, luminous night. We’ve done it to make these nights the best times of your life. We’ll let you out.”

“No!” Remus breathes it out at once, with all the strength of his breath.

“Yes!” James is triumphant.

Now I remember that he’s said it before, in April. We’ll let it out. Or did he say him? That led to the talk about expeditions. But we’ve started inside the castle, and obviously without a wolf, whereas Remus has done some beautiful work on drawing corridors and staircases, and concealing them level by level in the depths of his special artistry parchment, although there’re so far no secrets besides our passwords themselves. Yes, that’s the good idea to replace James’s. I don’t want to have anything to do with a monster running free around Hogsmeade, and I’m ignoring what James has said.

But Sirius has changed back. He’s struggling to sit up, holding Remus’s both hands, and must let go one, but continues to squeeze the other. “Don’t you dare do that, too, without considering!”

“I have considered and planned it since last spring. Ever since I knew I’d be a bigger animal.” James waves his arms high, indicating the majestic stag, and resumes pacing. “We can keep the wolf in check. He won’t get near humans. Besides, he’ll be even less anxious when free.”

“No,” Remus says in a low, controlled voice. “I’m already more anxious just thinking about it, the possibility that I…” 

“How can you be so sure!” Sirius cuts in, not with a genuine question.

But James answers one, “I can be sure, because I’ve already done it. I set him free in the Cotswolds.”

“Fuck.” Now the low voice is Sirius’s.

Remus has closed his eyes. He looks pale despite the remains of his beautiful tan.

“It was a glorious night.” James goes on, excited. “The wolf was amazing. Running free through the night, celebrating the moon. Not hurting anyone. It wasn’t even any effort to keep him peaceful. I’ve been looking forward to this: all of us having a good time together.” 

I think I can hear Remus’s effort now. His breathing, first quick, is slowing down again. Finally he opens his eyes.

Staring straight ahead, he talks in a voice so toneless and stifled that I can’t make out all the words. “… Think I’m grateful.” Was it a question or a statement?

“Pads! Wormy!” James appeals to us, perhaps not realising that he’s been talking to us, not to Remus himself ever since Remus’s first no. “Do you think he’s happy in that room? You’ve told me about his whining. And his parents noticed it. The whining after my visit. He yearns for freedom: running through woods under the moon.”

Remus has wrapped his arms around his knees, and now he’s taking glances at all of us, cautiously, without saying a word. I assume he’s learnt only now what truly happened at July full moon, but he chooses not to spell this out, not to blame James for hiding it from him – also not to confirm that he can remember nothing.

Sirius is no longer touching Remus, just staring at the bent knees – no, at the wrist poking out of Remus’s sleeve, and surely at the scar that remains of the fresh wound which Remus tried to hide even from us when he returned to school one day late.

“You are not so different from me,” Sirius finally says, slowly. And he is talking to Remus himself. “I mean, the wolf and the dog share a lot in common. And you know how much Pads enjoys romping in the woods, and smelling the earth, and biting the wind. The stag and the rat, too, of course. Now since they learnt to transform, Prongs and Wormy, too, have got eager to follow you out to the grounds and beyond the hedgegrows. You are the one who’s always known how to enjoy the outdoors in your human form. But I’ve wished you could…”

Sirius’s fingers have inched towards Remus’s feet, which are bare, covered only partly with the hem of his robes. Moony is crazy with his closeness to the nature – or to some uncultured and poor creatures – and runs around without shoes until full winter. And Sirius has got this new habit of stroking… But now he remembers himself again. Indeed, he glances at me.

And he sneers, tossing his head haughtily and flicking aside the hair that’s been hanging over one eye. “Running free after transforming – that’s our most noble prank. Remember, the point of a noble prank is not to irritate or impress anyone. Not to get caught – ever.” 

He, too, has envied me! Because I got to join James in a prank, and also got caught, while he was busy flower-picking and hand-holding in the woods – a pansy. Now he wants to prove that he’s the better prankster.

Grabbing Remus’s ankle, he continues in a gentle voice. “You’ve taught me pleasures of outdoor life I knew nothing about as a boy growing up in London. Now, as a dog I’d like to be your guide, in turn. I want to do all my best to make the wolf happy.”

Remus could say that it would mean nothing: his mind would not be there to know anything, and he’d store nothing in memory. But he only nods. And it’s been decided.

**Author's Note:**

> Peter quotes in his mind several phrases from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, a song written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and released on an album with the same title and as a single in October 1973.


End file.
